Notes: Based on a bishoujo game for the PC and the Dreamcast. The PC version was an adult game, but this anime is fine for general audiences.

Rating:

Canary ~Put This Feeling Into Song~

Synopsis

A group of high schoolers, well, they had a band, and they tried real hard.

Jimmy quit, Jody got married ...

Sorry, let's try that again.

A group of high schoolers, who are all in a band, are dead-set and determined to get back their keyboardist, Jun, even if it takes every sight gag in the book to do so.

Review

Canary is supposedly based on a bishoujo game of some sort. Being entirely unfamiliar with the game, and unlikely to see the game any time in the next millennium, I nevertheless have to call it as I see it.

Trying to develop anything more than two characters in a twenty-five minute span is a difficult task. Rather than even attempting to develop the cast of half-dozen band members, the creators of Canary opted instead to throw as many sight gags as possible into this show. They obviously never read our review of Trouble Chocolate: it didn't work for that show, and it certainly doesn't work for this one.

Since none of the characters are developed, what we get to see is a bunch of people grandstanding, running around, and generally acting like morons, while occasionally cracking jokes that aren't funny to Japanese (or speakers of any other language). It's like a bizarre mutant crossbreed of Macross 7 and Puni Puni Poemy on fast-forward, hold the mecha, hold the fan service.

What's truly odd is that this show actually has something of a budget to it. The art is pretty good, and the animation ... okay, not so good. The voice cast is practically all-star, with names like Yukino Satsuki, Koorogi Satomi, Kanai Mika, and Horie Yui. The music is mostly inoffensive J-pop and nothing to really get excited over, but at least it's not truly awful.

Sadly none of this budget went to hiring competent screenwriters -- the plotting is so terrible that it virtually nullifies everything remotely positive about this show.

I mean, really.

"We need to convince our mayor to let our band perform? Let's trick her into a roadblock!

That'll show her!"

Oh, it gets even worse ...

"Our keyboardist won't perform? Let's use a super-convoluted plan to trap him on the school roof and fly him through the air to the stage using gigantic kites!

That'll show him!"

The whole show culminates in a bicycle race between the mayor on her scooter and two of the band members on a tandem, which is a truly weak variation on a far-better scene in Golden Boy. (Get it? Canary is OUT BICYCLING!)

Add to this a zillion and one sight gags (including one very hyperactive squid mascot), very little of which have to do with the plot, and Canary goes from tiresome to odious within a matter of minutes.

It's all really quite gratuitous and embarrassing, and I expect only fans of the game will find anything to appreciate here. I know I didn't. I wasn't even able to heckle Canary, because I didn't think it'd be nice to wake up my wife that way.

While I know it's supposed to be a comedy, and a couple of the jokes are amusingly silly, the vast majority of it is only worth shaking your head at (and not to any sort of beat, either). Canary is simply too disjointed and confused to follow the beat of any drummer, and it just doesn't make any damn sense, even for a cartoon.

So to sum up this truly exquisite viewing experience ...

"This show is only one OAV and therefore won't get any better? Let's toss it into the Recycle Bin.

Recommended Audience: There is mild violence, but mostly in the form of slapstick. Though it's based on a bishoujo game, there is little fan service and no nudity. While age-wise there isn't a lot to deter children from watching Canary, it is best left to fans of the game.